w 







P.tite?* 














V .••••- ^ 4$> .•iilN- *> V • '••* ^c 













<* ***** A & ^r ^VVi* A 







W 



*'». 





\^ 









\J 













^9 S 






A * v, v 







LP O. 



feK 



A <3. **^L»i«» v A a** *^KU!W* tfr 4 






©•• 





















THE WISSAHICKON 




Devil's Pool 
(Painted in 1886 by Henry A. Fiey) 




*^g^£ 



COPYRIGHTED 



Rocky Path 



PHOTOGRAPH 
BY KIRBELL BAYES 



The Wissahickon 



COMPILED BY 

T. A. DALY 



DRAWINGS BY 
HERBERT PULLINGER 




published by 

The Garden Club of Philadelphia 

1922 



Fis 



9 



Copyright, 1922, by 
The Garden Club of Philadelphia 



PRINTED BY 

George H Buchanan Co. 

PHILADELPHIA 



DEC 13 72 

S)ClA69id3H 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

MRS. C. STUART PATTERSON 

FIRST PRESIDENT 
OF 

The Garden Club of Philadelphia 



Contents 

PAGE 

Historical Sketch 9 

Roads and Walks 45 

Outlines of Geology 63 

Trees and Wild Flowers 66 

Mosses 72 

Birds 76 

Railroad and Trolley Routes 81 



FOREWORD 

The vision of William Penn made possible the 
peaceful settlement of Pennsylvania and permitted 
the first settlers to plant their gardens where they 
would. In all other parts of this continent the 
early colonists had to restrict their gardening to the 
confines of the towns. Within Penn's Province 
only was there freedom from Indian hostility. 

Here in peace in the Valley of the Wissahickon, 
in 1694, John Kelpius and his fellow Pietists planned 
and planted the first botanical garden in this coun- 
try. The love of these Pietists for horticulture has 
been the inspiration for gardening which has come 
down through each generation. 

There has also come to this generation a grave 
responsibility — the preservation of the natural 
beauties of our land. They are menaced as never 
before. They must be protected now, if the genera- 
tions of the future are to have the refreshment and 
delight that nature alone can give. 

The Garden Club of Philadelphia has had this 
book compiled to encourage the love and enjoy- 
ment of nature and to strengthen and develop the 
appreciation of this wonderful woodland within our 
own city, so that many more may have the privi- 
lege of knowing the Valley of the Wissahickon and 
that its charms may then be cherished and con- 
served. 

Today in the midst of the stir and strife of city 
life is needed more than ever the calm and quiet 
of this Sanctuary of Peace. 

The Garden Club 
Philadelphia, November, 1922. 



Acknowledgments 

The compiler is indebted, for much of the data 
in his historical sketch, to the following publica- 
tions: 

"Fairmount Park and the Centennial Exhibition," 
by Charles S. Keyser, published 1875. 

"The Wissahickon in History, Song and Story," by 
Joseph D. Bicknell, published 1908 by the City History 
Society of Philadelphia. 

"Germantown Gardens and Gardeners" (paper read 
before the Site and Relic Society of Germantown), by 
Edwin C. Jellett, published 1914. 

"Pennsylvania Archives." 

The Garden Club and the compiler desire to 
express their grateful appreciation 

To Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott, who has 
most generously given the decoration for the cover ; 

To Kirbell Bayes, who contributed the frontis- 
piece, "Rocky Path" ; 

To John J. MacFarlane, who gave valuable infor- 
mation; 

To Professor Frederick Ehrenfeld, of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, Alexander MacElwee, 
President of the Philadelphia Botanical Club, 
George B. Kaiser and William Henry Trotter, for 
special articles. 



The Wissahickon 

There earliest stirred the feet of spring, 
There summer dreamed on drowsy wing, 
And autumn's glories longest cling 
Along the Wissahickon. 

— T. A. Daly, in "McAroni Ballads" 

The wise founder of Philadelphia builded better 
than he knew. When William Penn, in 1682, laid 
out his "greene country towne" on the Delaware 
River he may have had a vision of the greatness 
the centuries would bring to it. But he could 
scarcely have imagined his city grown to a metrop- 
olis, crowded with homes and houses of commerce, 
yet wearing as a jewel forever fixed in its crown 
a replica of the wildest natural grandeur to be found 
in all his "wooded land of Penn." It is no mere 
fanciful exaggeration to say that this is what has 
happened. 

The Wissahickon region has been called by 
Baedeker, who is surely an authority upon such 
matters, "a miniature Alpine gorge." This descrip- 
tive phrase could scarcely be improved upon ; and, 
it must be admitted, it was because of the utter 
impossibility of improving, for practical uses, the 
region itself that it was permitted by the earliest 
white settlers to remain an uncut jewel and become 
to the descendants of those pioneers the treasure 
it is today. 

The gorge of the Wissahickon, except for the 
building of the necessary avenues of approach, 
retains much of the virginal beauty its craggy 



10 THE WISSAHICKON 

wooded slopes and mossy, rock-studded waterways 
wore when the Lenni-Lenape Indians were its only 
human inhabitants. It is a narrow ribbon of minia- 
ture mountain grandeur, of irregular width, six and 
a half miles long, and having an area of 1250 acres — 
or about one-third the total area of Fairmount Park. 
It is a possession unique within city limits in the 
world. 

Wissahickon Creek rises in two springs near 
Montgomeryville, in Montgomery County, but all 
its surpassing loveliness lies between the point 
where it crosses the Philadelphia County line at 
Chestnut Hill and its junction with the Schuylkill 
River just above the Falls. It is this part, also, 
which is richest in historical and romantic interest. 
Here were the favorite hunting and fishing grounds 
of the Indians before, and for nearly a hundred 
years after, the settlement by Penn and Pastorius 
of Philadelphia and Germantown. Hither came 
Kelpius and his strange associates, mystics and 
hermits. Here in the wilderness, at intervals, infant 
industries were established, including the first paper 
mill in America. Along the lower reaches of the 
stream and across the enclosing ridges was fought 
an important part of the Battle of Germantown, 
and here were centered the many activities of the 
patriot "Green Boys" against the British and Hes- 
sians. Here in more peaceful times poets and prose 
writers came to sing and weave their legendary 
tales ; and here, later, came lovers old and young 
to fashion, or renew, their own romances. 

The chief object of this chronicle is to attract 
the attention of lovers of nature, and, by offering the 



THE WISSAHICKON 11 

fullest possible information of the present visible 
charms of the Wissahickon region, to lead them to 
discover for themselves and to enjoy and appreciate 
the natural loveliness long rock-sealed and unknown 
to most of the neighboring town-dwellers. To this 
end maps, pictures, trolley and motor routes, sug- 
gestions to hikers and horsemen, and chapters 
descriptive of the birds, flowers, rock-formation and 
other physical features of the region are elsewhere 
presented. That the present charm may be appre- 
ciated to the full it is necessary to go back over the 
past ; and it will be best to approach the Wissa- 
hickon much as did those first white adventurers 
who figured in the making of its early history. 



Early History 



It is likely, although there is no authentic record 
of the fact, that The Wissahickon was first dis- 
covered by some inquisitive white man, possibly a 
Swede from the earlier Delaware settlement, pad- 
dling along the eastern shore of the Schuylkill 
River. In that solitude the sound of the creek's 
waters tumbling over the natural dam of rocks 
which then marked its mouth was certain to 
attract attention. But the rocky formation which 
prevented navigation of the stream also frowned 
down from the precipitous banks and discouraged 
exploration afoot. This barrier to the region be- 
yond continued to exist during nearly a century 
and a half, for it was not until 1826 that the mass 
of rock was removed and the way was opened, along 



12 THE WISSAHICKON 

the east side of the creek, for easy access, by foot 
and wheel, to the heart of the inner valley. 

The first white explorers to break into that virgin 
wilderness were, doubtless, the men who made the 
survey in 1681-82, arranging the conveyance of the 
lands along the banks of the creek to twelve 
patentees, who held them for speculation and later 
sold portions of their grants to the settlers who 
followed. These surveyors, very probably went in 
by the landward route, taking the trail from Shacka- 
maxon on the Delaware which the Indians by long 
usage had beaten through the laurel bushes and 
dense underwoods, on their way to and from the 
Schuylkill and the camps beyond. 

It was over this rough trail that Francis Daniel 
Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, in the 
autumn of 1683, led his associates of "the German 
Company" from the Palatinate, to the tract which, 
after many weary weeks of delay and discussion, 
William Penn had finally assigned to him. Lands 
upon a navigable stream had been promised "the 
German Company," but such desirable tracts were 
not available, and though the nearest stream, the 
Wissahickon, was seemingly in no respect service- 
able, Pastorius wisely took what he could get. His 
settlement, spread out in straggling fashion for a 
mile or so along one main street, prospered and 
grew ; and from among its inhabitants came the first 
commercial invaders of the upper Wissahickon. 

The lower waters of the stream, below the falls, 
were, apparently, earlier exploited by venturesome 
spirits from Penn's Colony. Through the activities 
and the land-holding prominence of one of these 



THE WISSAHICKON 13 

worthies — John Whitpain, devout Friend and am- 
bitious merchant — the locality was in danger for a 
time of losing its lovely Indian name. In Holme's 
survey, and in old deeds and grants drawn in 1690, 
the stream is called "Whitpain's Creek." Fortu- 
nately, however, popular favor preserved the Indian 
name, or rather an anglicized blending of the two 
words variously used by the Lenapes to indicate 
its outstanding qualities — "Wisaucksickan" (yel- 
low-colored stream), and "Wisamickan" (catfish 
creek). 

The first industrial plant to harness the power of 
the tiny torrent was known at different times as 
"Robeson's Mill" and "Wissahickon Mill." The 
date of its erection is uncertain, but that it took 
priority over all others seems probable from the 
ancient deed recording that in 1686 John Townsend, 
millwright, and Robert Turner, purchased fifty- 
three and a half acres, which they sold July 11, 1691, 
to Andrew Robeson together with "the house, saw 
and grist mill erected thereon." The old deed's 
failure to mention the exact time, between 1686 
and 1691, when the house, saw and grist mill took 
shape under the builder's hands still leaves a hook 
for an argument among antiquarians favoring the 
Rittenhouse Mill, erected a mile or more up stream, 
in 1690 — some say 1688. 

But there will be more to say of these, and the 
numerous other mills, later. Any attempt to pre- 
sent, in proper chronological order, the steps in the 
development of the Wissahickon region must take 
note of the fact that it was the lower section that 
first enjoyed direct communication with Penn's 



14 THE WISSAHICKON 

little city down the river. And the river was the 
most favored medium of travel. "As late as the year 
1796," says Edwin C. Jellett, "and for a long time 
after, Broad Street, Philadelphia, extended only 
from present South Street to present Vine Street, 
while above and below these undeveloped thorough- 
fares were districts of farms unbroken save by 
fences, unimportant lanes and a few cross roads. 
At this time northward from the Penn City extended 
four important arteries. Leading to Frankford, and 
to points beyond, was Frankford or New York 
Road. West of this, Germantown Road and Old 
York Road for a distance ran together, parting at 
Rising Sun Village, the northern branch being the 
main avenue from Philadelphia to New York, the 
other, or western branch, passing to and through 
Germantown and continuing onward to the moun- 
tains of the Upper Schuylkill. Following Schuyl- 
kill River was Ridge Road, this uniting with Ger- 
mantown or Reading Pike at Barren Hill, and at 
Perkiomen Creek." But, as Mr. Jellett mentions 
later in the same paper, since the Germantown court 
records show that on March 9, 1702, Justus Falck- 
ner and Francis Daniel Pastorius were appointed 
to confer with Edward Farman, of White Marsh, 
concerning the cost of a road to Philadelphia, the 
earlier road to Germantown was evidently a mere 
trail scarcely worthy to be called a thoroughfare; 
and the same was very likely true of all roads lead- 
ing out of Philadelphia at that time. 

In 1706 Ridge Road was widened and improved, 
but for many years thereafter the river continued to 
be the favored link of communication between the 



THE WISSAHICKON 



15 



city and the settlements along the Schuylkill. To 
Robeson's grist mill, a sawmill and a nail factory 
were added, to meet the needs of the growing farm- 
ing community west of the Wissahickon. Though 
Ridge Road can scarcely be said to have hummed 



5ilP 




Railroad Bridge, Ridge Avenue Entrance 



with industry, it was the busiest avenue of trade 
thereabouts. Save for the intrusion of William 
Rittenhouse who erected a grist mill and later a 
much more famous paper mill about a mile up 
stream, the solitude of the valley behind the rock 
barrier at the creek's mouth was unbroken. 

To this sylvan stronghold of silence and of com- 
plete separation from the outer world came, in 1694, 



16 THE WISSAHICKON 

the Wissahickon's most interesting habitant, a being 
all spirit, the mystic and Pietist — John Kelpius. 

Born of a wealthy and distinguished family of 
Siebenburgen in Germany, John Kelpius studied 
at the University of Helmstadt under Dr. Fabricius, 
became proficient in many languages, and early 
steeped himself in occult science and mysticism. 
His intense religious fervor and gentle temper drew 
to him several kindred spirits, all men in easy cir- 
cumstances like himself, who followed him to the 
new world where they hoped to devote themselves, 
undisturbed, to constant meditation and prayer. 
Kelpius was but 23 years of age when, with his 
associates, he came to the village of Germantown. 
For a time they dwelt among the people of Pastorius 
and converted a few of those earlier settlers to their 
strange, visionary belief. They soon felt that the 
worldly bustle of the thriving community was a 
deterrent to full spiritual development, and taking 
with them their neophytes, of whom the most 
famous was Dr. Christopher Witt, they betook 
themselves deep into the lower Wissahickon woods 
and built their hermitage at a point about midway 
between the Rittenhouse Mill and the Ridge Road. 

Here they formed themselves into the "Society 
of the Woman of the Wilderness" and devoted 
themselves seriously to the important business of 
preparing for the millennium, which they believed 
near at hand, and for the coming of "the woman 
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, 
and the twelve stars on her forehead ; she who had 
fled into the wilderness." By this Woman, so far 



THE WISSAHICKON 17 

as we may discern her through the mists of mysti- 
cism with which they veiled her, was meant the 
pure spirit of early Christian faith, driven from the 
world by the wickedness and the dissensions of 
mankind. 

It is the habit of some commentators to sneer at 
"The Hermits of the Ridge," as they came to be 
called, as a pack of lazy lunatics. It may be ad- 
mitted that there were some queer kinks in their 
otherwise fine minds, but that they were lazy is not 
at all true. One of the first works to which they 
set the labor of their hands was the building of a log 
cabin forty feet square, true to the points of the 
compass, containing a large assembly room with an 
iron cross at one end. Four large windows looked 
out to the west, but the east side was bare ; and 
on this eastward wall was set the mystic sign of the 
Rosicrucians. For many of them, in common with 
other learned men of the time, were reputed to be 
members of that secret order said to have been 
founded in the 14th Century but of whose actual 
existence there has never been any proof. So, we 
are told, the mark of that mystic brotherhood, the 
cross within a circle, was fixed where it would catch 
the earliest rays of the morning sun. "On the roof," 
says Joseph D. Bicknell, in his paper written for 
the City History Society of Philadelphia in 1906, 
"was a lantern or observatory, undoubtedly the first 
erected in America, in which two of the brethren 
were always on the watch with scientific instru- 
ments for the coming of 'the Bridegroom' and inci- 
dentally engaged in studying the heavens." 



18 THE WISSAHICKON 

There can be no question of the kindly and benef- 
icent intentions of the brethren. They gave not 
only spiritual but material aid to all who sought 
their services. They cast horoscopes and practised 
and taught magic, divining and healing; and it was 
mainly for the furtherance of the science of elemen- 
tary medicine that Kelpius laid out, somewhere 
along the lower Wissahickon the first botanical 
garden in America. The second was the garden of 
that beloved disciple of Kelpius, Dr. Christopher 
Witt, who long survived his young master. But 
this Witt garden became properly a Germantown, 
not a Wissahickon, institution ; for, wrote Pastorius : 
"Anno 1711, Christopher Witt removed his flower 
beds close to my fence." Nearby Dr. Witt laid out 
his second garden, and it was this "lovesome spot," 
conducted by the good doctor when "well strickon 
in years," which was visited and unfavorably criti- 
cized in 1743 by John Bartram, whose own famous 
garden established in 1741 — the oldest botanical 
garden still extant in America — lies, in regrettable 
neglect, along the west bank of the lower Schuyl- 
kill opposite Point Breeze. 

It was the first garden of Kelpius to which George 
Webb is supposed to have referred when, in his 
"Bachelor Hall," published in 1729, he wrote: 

In our vast woods, whatever simples grow, 
Whose virtues none but the Indians know 
Within the confines of this garden brought, 
To rise with added lustre shall be taught, 
Then culled with judgment, each shall yield its juice 
Saliferous balsam to the sick man's use. 



THE WISSAHICKON 



19 



Kelpius, doubtless, learned much of native plant 
values from the Indians, and they in turn were his 
beneficiaries in many ways. Except for this tradition 
< 




^ ik} ■^■^iS^— ■-- ■ ' ■■'■ »,, 



Indian Rock 

of mutual affection, it is a curious and regrettable 
fact that in all the historical and legendary records 
of the Wissahickon there is little mention of the 
native red men. It may be that they were so mild 



20 THE WISSAHICKON 

as to be commonplace. At any rate, the name of 
no outstanding chief has come down to us. Nearly 
a half century after the time of Kelpius, it is true, 
one Tedyuscung did stalk — or stagger — into the 
story, but he is scarcely worthy of the prominence 
accorded him. There was nothing of the noble sav- 
age about Tedyuscung. "He was," says Charles 
Keyser, "no true savage — was litigious, was fre- 
quently drunk, and showed other evidences of a 
tendency to lapse into civilization." 

For a long time the name of Tedyuscung was 
associated with Indian Rock, the council stone of 
the Lenapes, one of the grandest of the high spots 
along the Wissahickon. A rough wooden image, 
designed to be an effigy of him, was set up there 
some seventy years ago. Later it was replaced by 
another and better one, which survived the ravages 
of the weather and relic-hunters until the begin- 
ning of the present century, when it was removed 
to the rooms of the Site and Relic Society of Ger- 
mantown. It is to be hoped that time will remove 
even the memory of Tedyuscung from Indian Rock ; 
for that craggy eminence is now worthily crowned 
by a memorial in enduring stone, the heroic, crouch- 
ing figure of a true Lenape, peering, hand to brow, 
far off to the western wilderness whither the noblest 
of the Lenapes took their way not very long after 
the death of Kelpius. 

Kelpius, sitting in a chair in his garden and sur- 
rounded by his sorrowing disciples, died in 1708, 
at the age of 35. He had worn himself out by his 
soul's "long during purification" and the "pensive 



THE WISSAHICKON 21 

longing in the wilderness" (phrases incorporated 
by him in the title of one of his hymns dated "Anno 
1698, January 30"). He was buried somewhere in 
that sylvan solitude, and with him passed "the con- 
secration and the dream." For though some of his 
followers stayed on until their own weary bones 
were laid away among the rocks, others went over 
to the Mennonite community at Ephrata, and still 
others returned to the normal workaday life of 
Germantown. 

The Society of the Woman of the Wilderness died 
with Kelpius, for though a generation later there 
arose in the neighborhood another short-lived 
colony of hermits, who occupied the Monastery 
which still stands in the upper reaches of the Wissa- 
hickon, these had no kinship with the early Pietists. 
They were Seventh Day Baptists, led by Joseph 
Gorgas, who had their fasts and vigils and practised 
a modified mysticism in imitation of their more 
famous predecessors. For a time proselytes came to 
them and were inducted into membership through 
the saving waters of a neighboring pool still known 
as the Baptistration. But these solitudinarians 
also passed on, after a few years, to the cloisters at 
Ephrata, in Lancaster County. 

Meantime the clatter of mill wheels had been 
swelling into a lively, if still somewhat scattered 
chorus through the Wissahickon valley. William 
Rittenhouse's grist mill, mentioned before, had be- 
come the Rittenhouse Paper Mill in 1690. William 
Bradford, famous American pioneer in the art of 
printing, was for several years a partner in the 



22 THE WISSAHICKON 

enterprise. In John Holme's "True Relation of the 

Flourishing State of Pennsylvania" (1696), we 

read: 

Here dwelt a printer and I find 

That he can both print books and bind. 

He wants not paper, ink nor skill, 

He's owner of a paper mill. 

The paper mill is here hard by 

And makes good paper frequently. 

Richard Frame's quaint excursion in doggerel — 
"A Short Description of Pennsylvania," printed by 
William Bradford at Philadelphia in 1696 — touches 
casually upon Germantown 

Where lives High German people and Low Dutch 
Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much. 

and, his limping lines go on to report that 

From linen rags good paper doth derive, 
The first trade keeps the second trade alive, 
A paper mill near German Town doth stand. 

This mill was located in a glen behind the Ritten- 
house dwelling (still standing and to be preserved, 
it is hoped, as a venerated, patriotic shrine forever) 
on the bank of the tumbling streamlet, long known 
as Paper Mill Run, which enters the Wissahickon 
at that point. The first mill was destroyed by a 
freshet in 1700, and William Penn is said to have 
assisted materially in the erection of a larger plant. 
Here at this first American paper mill most of the 
paper used in the middle colonies was made. In 
1705 William Rittenhouse became sole owner, and 
the property and business descended from father to 
son until the land was bought by the Fairmount 
Park Commission. 



THE WISSAHICKON 23 

Some distance further up Paper Mill Run Mat- 
thew Holgate established his fulling mill in 1698, 
and the industrial invasion of the upper Wissa- 
hickon was well under way. At the extreme north- 
ern end near City Line William Dewees built, in 
1710, the second paper mill in the Colonies, and here, 
we are told, paper for the cartridges (?) for the 
Revolutionary Army was made. Nearby was Daniel 
Howell's grist mill, also of 1710. It is unnecessary, 
and, indeed, it would be impossible — since many 
records are lost and others are unreliable — to name 
all the industrial plants that were depending on the 
water-power of the Wissahickon by the middle of 
the 18th Century. Most of them were grist mills, 
and of these the old Livezey, or "Great Mill" built 
by Thomas Shoemaker in 1745 was the most im- 
portant and for a long time the largest in the Col- 
ony. Mill dams were scattered all up and down 
the stream, and over the dam breasts rough roads 
were laid, affording the only communication, 
through the wilderness, between Germantown and 
Roxborough. 

But in spite of all this hum of trade fed by its 
crystal artery the upper Wissahickon has main- 
tained its wild beauty practically inviolate to this 
day. All these old mills — in 1793 they numbered 
twenty-four and before the middle of the 19th Cen- 
tury more than sixty — have entirely disappeared, 
save for a few dismantled foundations. Of the 
residences of the early factors only the Rittenhouse 
manse (1707) stands intact, and there is a special 
reason why this should be. For in the midst of the 
busy commercialism marking the middle of the 18th 



24 



THE WISSAHICKON 



Century a dreamer was born there who was destined 
to be the most glorious product of that region. 

David Rittenhouse, first American astronomer 
and zealous patriot of the Revolution, was born 
April 8, 1732. "He followed first the plough," says 
Charles S. Keyser, in his Centennial History of 




Vs&yD 



j'-U l~l., 



Home of David Rittenhouse 

Fairmount Park, "but was found so often with the 
plough lying in the furrow, and the fence full of 
figures, that he lost that service, and took up the 
trade of a clockmaker. His first great work, among 
many others — marvelous in their time, constructed 
wholly at night, his idle hours as he called them — 
was the famous orrery now in Princeton University. 
His next was a series of calculations for the transit 



THE WISSAHICKON 25 

of Venus over the sun's disk. This wonderful me- 
chanical contrivance, the universe in motion on a 
frame, and these accurate and profound calculations, 
and their verification by his own observation, gave 
him a wide-spread reputation in this country and 
Europe. The life of David Rittenhouse was mainly 
connected with the world of science, and his fame 
there rests ; but, yet, his mind was also an invaluable 
machine for the business uses of his generation." 
Dreamer among the stars, yet with his feet solidly 
set upon the land he loved, he was a leader among 
his patriotic neighbors, served as State Treasurer 
from 1777 to 1789, afterwards as Director of the 
Mint, and was for many years President of the 
American Philosophical Society. 

Period of the Revolution 

Exact truth and doubtful tradition are so hope- 
lessly mixed in the story of the first hundred years 
of the Wissahickon region, it is almost impossible 
now to determine fact from fiction in the records 
that have come down to us touching the part played 
by it in the war for American independence. 

The deeply wooded, rocky valley, still sealed at 
its riverward end by granite cliffs, and cut into, 
from the east or west, only at widely separated 
intervals by rough mill roads, seems to have been 
a No-Man's-Land. Somewhere over this difficult 
ground we know that an important part of 
the Battle of Germantown was waged on October 
4, 1777, by the Pennsylvania Militia, under General 
John Armstrong, and the Hessian Jaegers of Knyp- 



26 THE WISSAHICKON 

hausen. But where the bulk of the fighting was 
done, and by what road, or roads, the patriot troops 
moved to the attack, it is impossible to say. 

The tablet erected in 1907, by the Pennsylvania 
Society of Sons of the Revolution, at the entrance 
to the Upper Wissahickon, below the old Ritten- 
house dwelling, says : "On the morning of the 
Battle of Germantown, October 4, 1777, the Penn- 
sylvania Militia, under General John Armstrong, 
occupying the high ground on the west side of the 
creek opposite this point, engaged in a skirmish 
the left wing of the British forces, in command of 
Lieut.-General Knyphausen, who occupied the high 
ground on the east side, along Schoolhouse Lane." 
This would seem to agree with the tradition that 
Armstrong advanced over the Holgate's Mill Road, 
then the most direct route from Roxborough to 
Germantown — the course he would most likely have 
taken if his first objective had been an immediate 
junction with Washington's main army in German- 
town. But it was not; as will appear from Arm- 
strong's report of the engagement. At variance, 
also, with that report is the impression given by 
the wording of the tablet that the combatants stuck 
to their respective "high grounds" and fired at each 
other across the ravine. Even if there had been 
no dense fog — and there was — this would have been 
a waste of powder and shot. The muskets of neither 
Continentals nor Jaegers would have carried that 
far; and Armstrong's men had at most but two 
small field pieces. 

General Armstrong declares his "destiny" to have 
been "Vanduring's." The mill of John Vandaren 



THE WISSAHICKON 27 

and Enoch Rittenhouse, built very early in the 18th 
Century was situated not far from the present Her- 
mit's Lane, which, after much litigation, was opened 
in 1794, as a private way, giving Michael Ritten- 
house (then sole owner of Vandaren's) an outlet 
from his grist mill to Ridge Road. Also, says Key- 
ser, in his Centennial History of Fairmount Park: 
"The British line of redoubts extended back of the 
Wissahickon Creek, along the east side, for a dis- 
tance of two miles. During the battle the Amer- 
icans occupied the hills, and until recently (about 
1860) the remains of their temporary redoubts were 
visible, extending along the west side in a semi- 
circle, a considerable distance. In building the 
Railroad Bridge which crosses here, these old land- 
marks were destroyed." 

The bridge referred to was the wooden prede- 
cessor of the splendid stone structure above and 
parallel with Ridge Road, which — all honor and 
praise to the good taste of its builders ! — serves not 
only as a viaduct for the tracks of the Reading 
Railway but as a noble, arched gateway to the 
Lower Wissahickon. It was in this neighborhood, 
very probably, that the action of the morning of 
October 4, 1777, began, and spread later to the 
point favored by the tablet and beyond. For "the 
horrenduous hills of the Wissihickon," in which 
the General in command was obliged to abandon 
one field-piece, may well have been those lovely, 
and anything but "horrenduous," fastnesses of the 
upper reaches. 

It is rather curious that although brief extracts 
from General Armstrong's report have frequently 



28 THE WISSAHICKON 

been quoted, the complete document has seldom, if 
ever, been published outside of the Pennsylvania 
Archives. It is a quaint military paper, and it may 
be that a feeling of squeamish patriotism has 
prompted most commentators to hide from the 
plain people its faults of composition. But though 
many in Colonial times spelled as poorly as General 
John Armstrong, few could fight as well as he ; and 
there is nothing to be ashamed of in this letter to 
the President of the Supreme Council of Pennsyl- 
vania : 

GENERAL ARMSTRONG TO PRES'T WHARTON, 

Camp near the Trapp, 5th Octob'r, 1777 
Sir: 

By a forced march of fourteen miles or upward, 
on Friday night, General Washington attacked 
about sunrise yesterday morning, the British & 
Foreign Troops encamped at Jerman Town, Van- 
durings & elsewhere toward the York Road. We 
marched by four different routes — those on the left 
did not arrive so soon as the Columnes on the Cen- 
ter & Right. The Continental Troops drove the 
principal part of the Enemy at Jerman Town full 
two miles; yet what I shall say a victory almost 
in full embrace was frustrated, but by what means 
cannot yet be easily ascertained. I think by a num- 
ber of casualties, a thick fogg whereby not only 
our ammunition was expended without an object, 
but it's thought that our own Troops had been 
taken in an instance or two for reinforcements of 
the enemy, whereby a panic & retreat ensued, which 
the General could not prevent! Thus may it be 
said, thro' some strange fatality (tho' not the less 
faulty on our part,) that we fled from victory. 
Another reason was the time spent about Mr. 
Chew's house, where a number of the Enemy took 
sanctuary, & from which a number of our people 



THE WISSAHICKON 29 

were killed & wounded. We can yet tell nothing 
perfectly of our loss, nor of that of the enemy. 
General Nashes thigh & the head of Major Wither- 
spoon were, it's said, both taken away by one and 
the same Cannon Ball. I shou'd be glad to send 
you a Copy of Our Order of Battle, or attack, but 
have it not here. My destiny was against the vari- 
ous Corps of Jermans encamped at Mr. Vandur- 
ings or near the Falls. Their Light Horse dis- 
covered our approach a little before sunrise; we 
cannonaded from the heights on each side the 
Wissihickon, whilst the Riflemen on opposite sides 
acted on the lower ground. About nine I was 
called to joine the General, but left a party with the 
Colls. Eyers & Dunlap, & one field piece & after- 
wards reinforced them, which reinforcements, by 
the way, however did not joine them, untill after 
a brave resistance they were obliged to retreat, but 
carried off the field piece, the other I was obliged 
to leave in the Horrenduous hills of the Wissi- 
hickon, but ordered her on a safe rout to join 
Eyeres if he shou'd retreat, as was done accordingly. 
We proceeded to the left, and above Jermantown 
some three miles, directed by a slow crossfire of 
Canon, untill we fell into the Front of a superior 
body of the Enemy, with whom we engaged about 
three quarters of an hour, but their grape shot & 
ball soon intimidated & obliged us to retreat or 
rather file off. Untill then I thought we had a Vic- 
tory, but to my great disappointment, soon found 
our army were gone an hour or two before, & we 
the last on the ground. We brought off every- 
thing but a wounded man or two — lost not quite 
20 men on the whole, & hope we killed at least that 
number, beside diverting the Hessian Strength from 
the General in the morning. I have neither time 
nor light to add but that I am respectfully yours, 

_. , John Armstrong 

Directed, 

The Honorable Thos. Wharton, Lancaster. 



30 THE WISSAHICKON 

It seems reasonably clear from all this that it was 
not by Holgate's Mill Road that the Pennsylvania 
Militia moved into the engagement, but by some 
road further down, probably the Ridge Road itself. 

"Manatawney" was the name most commonly 
given in Revolutionary times to the present Ridge 
Road. Before that it had been the "King's High- 
way." During Howe's occupation of Philadelphia, 
it was unquestionably the liveliest highway out of 
Philadelphia, mainly because of the colonists' de- 
termination that it should no longer be the King's. 
British outposts constantly patrolled this avenue of 
approach, and possible attack, from Valley Forge 
and other camps along the Schuylkill. Near Rock- 
fish Inn, a short distance below the Falls of Schuyl- 
kill, Knyphausen's Hessians had their camp and 
from that base waged reprisals against the inter- 
mittent guerrilla warfare of the "Green Boys," bold 
young yokels of the neighborhood. An important 
figure in this patriot band was Jacob Levering, "the 
spy of the Wissahickon." A surprise attack of the 
Hessians, directed against Wood's barn, just beyond 
the mouth of the Wissahickon, in the hope of catch- 
ing the elusive "Green Boys," tradition has it, led 
to the massacre of some soldiers of the Virginia 
Line, who, on their way to Valley Forge had taken 
shelter there for the night in spite of the neighbors' 
warnings. (A monument in Leverington Cemetery, 
Roxborough, commemorates the victims of this 
massacre.) 

In the spring of 1778, Manatawney, or Ridge 
Road, just above the mouth of the Wissahickon, 
was the scene of a masterly manoeuvre by General 



THE WISSAHICKON 



31 



Lafayette, whom Washington had despatched from 
Valley Forge, with a force of 2000 men, to make a 
sortie against Howe in Philadelphia. Howe, ad- 
vised of this, determined to attack without delay. 
One force of 5000 men sent around by Chestnut 
Hill, succeeded in establishing itself a mile in the 

4 MWi 




<> 



Old Livezey Mansion 



rear of Lafayette's position, while a smaller detach- 
ment, advanced against him up the Ridge Road. 
These movements were discovered during the night 
by Captain Allen McLane (or McClane) a vigilant 
Continental officer, who made his way to Lafa- 
yette's camp and apprised him of his danger. The 
general in command feigned an attack on the larger 
force, and then by a rapid flank movement took his 
army safely across the river at Matson's Ford. 



32 THE WISSAHICKON 

The Wissahickon is rich in Revolutionary leg- 
ends. We are told how Mom Rinker, a crafty old 
woman, was wont to pass valuable messages to 
Washington's men by concealing them in a ball of 
yarn which she dropped from Mom Rinker's Rock 
where she sat apparently engaged in innocent knit- 
ting; and how, in a skirmish, a dozen Hessians were 
killed "back of the garden wall in front of the Live- 
zey house" along the Upper Wissahickon. But all 
these tales may be liberally discounted. It is enough 
to know that in this wild gorge valiant patriots, in 
Continental buff and blue, and in rough homespun 
of the farmhouse — and some even in skirts — gave 
their best service to the great cause. 

But our chief joy now is in the realization that 
there were then no terrible engines of war to make 
this "No-Man's-Land" a bleak waste; and that its 
pristine natural beauty is still ours to enjoy. 

The Romantic Discovery 

With the evacuation of Philadelphia by the Brit- 
ish in June, 1778, and for nearly half a century 
thereafter, the Wissahickon seems to have reverted 
to its earlier state of solitude and separation from 
the world described by Whittier in his narrative 
poem of "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim": 

Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung 
The air to madness, and no steeple flung 
Alarums down from bells at midnight rung. 

The land slept well. The Indian from his face 
Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place 
Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase. 



THE WISSAHICKON 33 

The Indian, it is true, was gone, never to return. 
So, too, were the timid deer, perhaps. But there 
were other incentives to "the peaceful chase," for, on 
the testimony of the antiquarian Watson, bears and 
wolves were shot there as late as 1795. In the pools 
upstream trout were still to be had, and every 
spring the broader waters at the mouth of the creek 
below the falls were alive with a migratory species 
of catfish which came there (according to a credible 
witness) "in numbers so numerous as to blacken 
the narrow passages." The society of Fort St. 
Davids, an ancient and honorable company of ama- 
teur anglers and bonvivants, akin to the famous 
State in Schuylkill, further down the river, had es- 
tablished itself nearby long before the Revolution. 
John Dickinson, frail shadow of a man, but fiery 
patriot, and signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, was of this company. When grim war stalked 
up and down Ridge Road he and his associates 
were otherwise engaged then in the gentle art of 
angling. In reprisal for this, Knyphausen's Hes- 
sians burned down the "fort." But after the Revo- 
lution it was rebuilt and for many years continued 
to be a lively center of conviviality. 

Godfrey Shronk, a noted Wissahickon fisherman, 
assured Watson, the chronicler, that the small gar- 
rison at Fort St. Davids often cooked and dis- 
patched forty dozen catfish at a meal. Shronk him- 
self is credited with having caught 3000 catfish 
(with a net, of course), in a single night. Shad, 
also, were taken there as late as 1821, but the Fair- 
mount Dam, erected in that year, thereafter blocked 
their passage; though the catfish continued still to 



34 



THE WISSAHICKON 



tickle the palates of generations of gourmands along 
the Wissahickon. 

The early 20's of the last century marked the be- 
ginning of the Romantic Discovery of the Wissa- 
hickon. Up until 1822 no effort had been made to 
open the mouth of the creek, but in that year the 



*/m^v >, - «■ "-* ) •:, ;.. ,.■ 



4 ••' L' 






'Kill 



^gp^i .-■•;- 



Wissahickon Hall 

deep ledge of rock over which the waters tumbled 
in a graceful fall of ten or twelve feet was removed. 
Four years later the stone battlements guarding the 
banks were attacked, and the present road along the 
east side was cut through to the old Rittenhouse 
mill. At the same time the road-builders began 
working through from Chestnut Hill, and that year, 
1826, the Wissahickon began to unfold its charms 
to the public. 



THE WISSAHICKON 35 

Even yet, however, there was no evidence that 
the public was interested, beyond a casual sharing 
of the utilitarian thought in the minds of the city's 
engineers. For it was to afford the mills along the 
creek a direct outlet to Ridge Road that this im- 
provement was undertaken. In the back of their 
minds, too, the authorities may have had another 
practical thought. Franklin had recommended in 
his will (1780) that a portion of the legacy he left 
to accumulate for the benefit of the City of Phila- 
delphia be expended "at the end of one hundred 
years, if not done before, in bringing, by pipes, the 
water of the Wissahickon Creek into the town so 
as to supply the inhabitants." 

Credit for the first discovery of the Wissahickon's 
sentimental riches belongs to Fanny Kemble. This 
famous actress, and brilliant and beautiful woman, 
while playing an engagement in Philadelphia in 
1832, made several horseback trips to the mouth of 
the creek, and, though she seems not to have fol- 
lowed its course very far, fell instantly and deeply 
in love with it. Under date of December 30, 1832, 
she wrote in her Journal a long and flowery account 
of her first view of the Wissahickon's loveliness. 
"The thick, bright, rich-tufted cedars," it concluded, 
"basking in the warm amber glow, the picturesque 
mill, the smooth open field, along whose side the 
river waters, after receiving this child of the moun- 
tains into their bosom, wound deep, and bright, and 
still, the whole radiant with the softest light I ever 
beheld, formed a most enchanting and serene sub- 
ject of contemplation." 



36 THE WISSAHICKON 

Later she burst into song about it, and left to 
posterity at least two poems, both, unfortunately, 
too long for citation here. 

One of Edgar Allen Poe's "Landscapes in Prose," 
on its first publication was illustrated with an etch- 
ing of an elk, by J. G. Chapman. This circumstance 
seems to have been partly responsible for the fact 
that wherever it has been reprinted it is entitled 
"The Elk." But the sketch, as it originally ap- 
peared in "The Opal," a gift book for 1844, carried 
the title "Morning on the Wissahiccon." In the 
course of this article, Poe wrote : 

It was not until Fanny Kemble, in her droll book 
about the United States, pointed out to Philadel- 
phians the rare loveliness of a stream which lay at 
their own doors, that this loveliness was more than 
suspected by a few adventurous pedestrians of the 
vicinity. But, the "Journal" having opened all eyes, 
the Wissahiccon, to a certain extent, rolled at once 
into notoriety. I say "to a certain extent," for, in 
fact, the true beauty of the stream lies far above the 
route of the Philadelphian picturesque-hunters, 
who rarely proceed farther than a mile or two above 
the mouth of the rivulet — for the very excellent 
reason that here the carriage-road stops, I would 
advise the adventurer who would behold its finest 
points to take the Ridge Road, running westwardly 
from the city, and, having reached the second lane 
beyond the sixth milestone, to follow this lane to 
its termination. He will thus strike the Wissa- 
hiccon, at one of its best reaches, and, in a skiff, 
or by clambering along its banks, he can go up or 
down the stream, as best suits his fancy, and in 
either direction will meet his reward. 

From this it is clear that the improvement begun 
in 1826 still left much to be desired eighteen years 



THE WISSAHICKON 37 

later. It was not until 1856 that the present road 
from Ridge Avenue to the County Line at Chestnut 
Hill was completed by the Wissahickon Turnpike 
Company. 

At about the time Poe was writing his sketch for 
"The Opal," a lesser — an infinitely lesser — genius 
was haunting the Wissahickon and spinning ro- 
mances much wilder than the hills and glens by 
which they were inspired. George Lippard, born in 
Chester County, in 1822, but brought to German- 
town by his parents while he was still a small boy, 
was an unwholesome, will-o'-the-wisplike spirit. 
As boy and man he delighted to wander "where the 
breeze mourns its anthem through tall pines ; where 
the silver waters send up their voices of joy ; where 
calmness and quiet and intense solitude awe the 
soul and fill the heart with bright thoughts and 
golden dreams woven in the luxury of the summer 
hour." 

The Wissahickon runs through several of his sen- 
sational novels which had much popularity in their 
day, tales as feeble, feverish and short-lived as he 
himself was. On one of the highest rocks of the 
Wissahickon — probably that known as "Lover's 
Leap" — on a moonlit night in May, 1847, he was 
married by Indian rites to the frail young woman 
who preceded him to the grave a few years later. 

Besides the prose sketch mentioned before, Poe 
does not seem to have been moved to write any- 
thing in celebration of the Wissahickon's charm. 
This is regrettable. The silence of Tom Moore is 
more easily pardoned, for though the Irish melodist 
spent several weeks in a cottage on the west bank 



38 THE WISSAHICKON 

of the Schuylkill only a mile or so downstream, the 
Wissahickon was not then (1804) so easy to reach. 
But many years later, one singer approaching the 
rank of those others — the gentle Quaker poet of 
Amesbury — did touch lightly and with grace upon 
this region. In his long eulogy of Francis Daniel 
Pastorius ("The Pennsylvania Pilgrim") Whittier 
brightens his pages with many splashes of local 
color, calls back to memory 

* * * painful Kelpius from his hermit den 
By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, 

and tells again how 

Deep in the woods, where the small river slid 
Snakelike in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid, 
Weird as a wizard over arts forbid. 

When Whittier came to the Wissahickon, thus 
to let his fancy have play among "old, forgotten, 
far-off things," the lovely valley was on the eve of 
its restoration — as nearly as could be — to its orig- 
inal state of wild beauty. In that year, 1871, the 
tunnel was cut through the huge mass of rock on 
the Schuylkill's east bank above Girard Avenue, 
and the River Drive was carried through to Mifflin 
Lane, where it detoured over the old dirt road to 
Strawberry Mansion and by the Ridge Road to the 
mouth of the Wissahickon. Over this new and more 
direct highway, two years later, the Fairmount 
Park Commission may be said to have marched in 
to take possession of the whole Wissahickon region 
which it had been authorized to acquire and pre- 
serve forever. 



THE WISSAHICKON 39 

The Act of Assembly, approved 1868, provided 
that, 

It shall be the duty of the said Park Commis- 
sioners to appropriate the shores of the Wissa- 
hickon Creek on both sides of such width as may 
embrace the road now passing along the same; and 
may also protect the purity of the water of said 
creek, and by passing along the crest of the heights 
which are now on either side of said creek, may pre- 
serve the beauty of its scenery." 

It required four or five years to complete the sur- 
vey and acquire all the property needed, but by 
1873 the Commissioners were ready to begin the 
work of restoration. There was much to be done. 
In the forty years following Fanny Kemble's trump- 
eting of its neglected charms, the region had been 
extensively exploited by Commercial Industry and 
Social Pleasure — both somewhat unbridled. The 
numerous mills, already referred to, had so multi- 
plied, and spread not only along the main stream, 
but also on its several small tributaries, as to make 
this one of the most important industrial districts 
within the city limits. All these establishments, 
with the single exception of the Megargee Paper 
Mill near Chestnut Hill (which was allowed to stand 
until 1884) were immediately torn down; and so 
Commerce passed out. 

The centers of Social Pleasure were not torn, but 
merely toned, down. Taverns and roadhouses, 
which had been all that custom in the middle of the 
Nineteenth Century expected such places to be, 
either became totally temperate under the new park 
regulations or disappeared altogether from the 
neighborhood. At the same time new houses of 



40 



THE WISSAHICKON 



entertainment, aiming to profit by the increasing 
popularity of the Wissahickon, arose at several 
points outside the park limits but within easy reach 




.^(^iw^iw9T mfc iraaaBcy^g5ng'Bqst^sgim$y 



w^^ f^^?^ ^^ 






fife II 




— — i 

Midwinter 

of the main drive, and there for those who cared 
to seek it, the dance went on, as merry as before. 

At most, if not all, of these road houses, before 
1873, catfish and waffle and chicken dinners were 
served at all seasons, and in winter when the roads 



THE WISSAHICKON 41 

were white, and not too deeply covered, trim sleighs 
drawn by fast steppers flashed up and down the 
drive from Ridge Road to Chestnut Hill ; and moon- 
light nights especially were all a jangle of silver 
bells. On fine afternoons from early spring until 
late fall the sedate carriage-folk of Germantown 
and Chestnut Hill in their broughams and landaus, 
the grand ladies shielding their complexions from 
the sun with tiny parasols and sitting scarcely less 
erect than their liveried coachmen, took the air and 
enjoyed the scenery with calm dignity. The fash- 
ionable set of the city proper, below Market Street, 
seldom ventured beyond Sweet Briar or Belmont, 
which was jaunt enough for an elegant equipage in 
the 70's. 

For these the roadhouse would have hung out its 
sign in vain. But it did appeal to the horsey set 
and to the plain people who came in afoot and by 
horse-car and railway line. The first house of enter- 
tainment within the southern gateway was Wissa- 
hickon Hall. It was built by Harry Lippen, in 
1849, at the foot of Gypsy Lane ; and there the old 
house still stands — but as a barracks for the Park 
Guard. A short distance further along, and on the 
west bank of the creek was the Log Cabin, which 
first hung out its bush in the early 40's. The catfish 
and waffles and other refreshments offered at Wis- 
sahickon Hall were probably better than the fare 
the Log Cabin provided, and to catch custom 
Thomas Llewellyn, the proprietor, introduced as an 
added attraction a small menagerie of owls, foxes, 
monkeys and other small animals. Two large, 



42 THE WISSAHICKON 

black bears were chained to an old passenger coach 
near the inn door. 

The Maple Springs Hotel, diagonally across the 
creek from the Log Cabin, built and conducted by 
Joseph ("Whittler") Smith, also had two bears, 
and these put the Log Cabin's bruins completely in 
the shade. They were trained, for the amusement 
of travelers along the road, to bite the string that 
held down the cork of a highly-charged mineral 
water bottle and guzzle the contents. "Whittler" 
Smith had the knack of carving roots into gro- 
tesque shapes, and he maintained besides a collec- 
tion of curious natural specimens of strange forms 
in roots and branches. 

But all this was 50 years ago. "A plague upon 
both your houses!" said the Park Commissioners, 
and the Log Cabin and the Maple Springs Hotel 
disappeared from the Wissahickon. Of all the inns 
and roadhouses, once numerous enough along the 
creek, only one still stands, offering temperate re- 
freshment to travelers — Valley Green Inn. Tra- 
dition, which is not at all dependable, would make 
the inn at least 150 years old. For it is said Wash- 
ington and Lafayette dined there one day on their 
way from the camp at Barren Hill to Germantown. 
Another story has it that a large quantity of wine 
sent from France to Franklin was buried there for 
safekeeping while the British occupied Philadel- 
phia. But other "authorities" locate this interest- 
ing cache at the old Livezey Homestead near Al- 
len's Lane. 

All this is a mixture of the merest gossip with a 
thin color of truth. It seems to be true that just 



THE WISSAHICKON 



43 



before the Battle of Germantown several casks of 
wine were sunk in the stream thereabouts. But 
there was no "large quantity of wine sent from 
France to Franklin." This story is a simple distor- 
tion of the fact that one of the Livezeys did send a 
small sample of native Wissahickon wine to Frank- 
lin when he was at Paris. Franklin praised its 







Valley Green 



quality but frankly declared it inferior to the French 
vintages. Washington and Lafayette may indeed 
have dined more than once at a house in the neigh- 
borhood of Valley Green, but the present inn build- 
ing was not erected until 1850. Abraham Rinker 
was the first landlord of Valley Green Tavern, and 
he was succeeded in 1856 by Simon Markley, who 
gave way later to Abraham Stone. Then came the 



44 THE WISSAHICKON 

Park Commission, bringing a new order of things 
to Valley Green, but maintaining it still as a delight- 
ful rendezvous for all visitors to the upper Wissa- 
hickon. 

By the time of the Centennial Exposition of 1876 
the Fairmount Park Commission had made prodi- 
gious improvements in the region entrusted to it 
only three years before. In every way possible the 
original wild beauty of the place was restored and 
the Wissahickon was ready for the admiration of 
visitors from all over the world. These came, and 
their amazement and delight and subsequent praise 
first stirred Philadelphia to a full realization of the 
value of this unique jewel in its crown, and gave 
to the region the international fame which had 
been too long denied. 

Under the beneficent administration of the Park 
Commission the Wissahickon has grown in charm 
year by year. The history of that half century of 
restoration and preservation could not be told in 
words one-half so well as it may be read by every- 
one who is privileged now to see and enjoy the re- 
sults of the Commission's labors. Within the limits 
of this chronicle any adequate description of the 
loveliness of the Wissahickon — particularly the 
upper reaches — would be impossible. But brief 
hints as to special points of interest may be given, 
and the reader will find in the pages that follow 
guide-posts that should help him to many a delight- 
ful adventure. 



THE WISSAHICKON 45 

Roads and Walks 

In his delightful "Travels in Philadelphia" (1920), 
Christopher Morley, poet and essayist, presents 
several sketches in musical prose, appreciative of 
the beauties of the Wissahickon region. By way 
of preface to one of these he says : 

Perhaps Philadelphians do not quite realize how 
famous the Wissahickon Valley is. When my 
mother was a small girl in England there stood on 
her father's reading table a silk lampshade on which 
were painted little scenes of the world's loveliest 
beauty glimpses. There were vistas of Swiss 
mountains, Italian lakes, French cathedrals, Dutch 
canals, English gardens. And then, among these 
fabled glories, there was a tiny sketch of a scene 
that chiefly touched my mother's girlish fancy. 
She did not ever expect to see it, but often, as the 
evening lamplight shone through it, her eye would 
examine its dainty charm. It was called "The 
Wissahickon Drive, Philadelphia, U. S. A." Many 
years afterward she saw it for the first time and her 
heart jumped as hearts do when they are given a 
chance. 

The tiny scene on the lampshade, doubtless one 
of those which were broadcast over the world from 
the Centennial Exposition, very probably showed 
what was then, as now, the noble main entrance, 
with its broad sweep from Ridge Avenue into the 
heart of the valley of enchantment. The general 
view is much the same now as it was then, but the 
volume of the vehicular traffic through that gate- 
way has greatly increased and its character has 
wonderfully changed. The brougham and the Ian- 



46 



THE WISSAHICKON 



dau have gone. In the steady procession of motor- 
cars along the lower drive any sort of horse-drawn 
vehicle is as rare as a white blackbird. Yet to see 
and enjoy the full beauty of the Wissahickon one 
must either go afoot or ride upon, or behind, a 
horse. 

The automobile, of course, though it has the 
faults of its virtues, will afford the casual visitor 
the speediest and most comfortable medium of 
transportation from the center of the city. And if 



^^^^f^v^srE^g^-^. ,$typ*& 




f .,M 



Bridge at Valley Green 



the motorist is willing to brave the honking of im- 
patient horns behind him and will loaf along the 
far edge of the right of way, there will be beauty 
enough to reward him, after he turns in from the 



THE WISSAHICKON 



47 



.^N 



Andorra - 



Thorp'sLane — 



Tkos,HillBoad- 



Rex. Avenue — 



A Key Map of the 

Wissahickon 

^s Section of 

N. Fairmount Park 
Philadelphia 




Hermits Lane — 
Ridge Road — 



48 THE WISSAHICKON 

East River Drive, until he passes on to the Lincoln 
Drive, at the old Rittenhouse Mansion. At that 
point the original Wissahickon Turnpike, follow- 
ing the course of the stream, veers sharply to the 
westward and, becoming narrower, is closed to 
motor traffic. But cars may be parked in the neigh- 
borhood, or at Valley Green, in the heart of the 
lovely Upper Wissahickon, which automobiles may 
reach only by way of Springfield Avenue. 

Many of the initiated who come by motor from 
a distance arrange to have carriages or saddle- 
horses meet them at Rittenhouse Street, which has 
become of late years a popular rendezvous ; for 
near there the upper drive begins and the main 
bridle paths strike in. The old horse-trail along the 
heights above the right bank of the creek (going 
upstream) has its entrance just above the Ritten- 
house dwelling; and almost directly across Lincoln 
Drive, from that point is the entrance to the new 
trail running south to Ridge Avenue. The maps, A, 
B and C, will give the general direction and extent 
of these bridle paths. The reader will understand, 
of course, that horsemen are free to use the main 
road ; and many, indeed, prefer it. No other park- 
way within the limits of any city in the world af- 
fords such rare and various delights to the eques- 
trian as are to be had here. 

But, after all, the best way to see and enjoy a 
primitive region is the most primitive way. No 
effort is made in the several simple maps in these 
pages to indicate the exact location of footpaths. 
All roads are open to the hiker, and to him alone 
do all the beauties of the region disclose themselves. 



THE WISSAHICKON 



49 



ittenhouse. 
S treat Enirance, 




Kelpius Spring' 
Hermits. 






,d 



The. 
Steps. /*; 
Wiss'h'n 

•StatioK. 



^Wiss'h'nXa.21 



r.fr.R. R.n. 



Schuyl- 
kill^ 
Riv<r ' 




50 THE WISSAHICKON 

For those who come by railroad or trolley there are 
several advantageous points of entrance (see page 
81), but since Rittenhouse Street serves best as a 
starting point for excursions afoot in either direc- 
tion, we will ask the reader to start with us now 
from that point, for a sweep 'round the circuit. It 
is not our purpose in these pages to fix hard 
and fast limits for particular hikes — these, if 
desired may be obtained of the Philadelphia Rapid 
Transit, of the Riders' and Drivers' Association, or 
of the several hiking clubs — but merely to indicate 
the many points of interest up and down the valley, 
so that the reader may plan his own rambles. 

Entering the Park at the junction of Rittenhouse 
Street and Wissahickon Avenue (see map A) we fol- 
low the curve of the road to a point a few yards 
short of Lincoln Drive, and there turn to the left 
into the bridle path. Just beyond the old quarry, 
near the entrance, the trail forks, the path to the 
right leading across Lincoln Drive to the long 
horse-trail through the Upper Wissahickon. We 
bear to the left, over the new bridle path begun 
and completed within the past two years, and climb 
to the high ground, skirting the Park's eastern 
boundary. Far below, to the right, is the entrance 
to the Upper Wissahickon Drive. The bridle path 
climbs higher and runs for a considerable distance 
parallel with the lower Drive. Beautiful vistas open 
at intervals, as the path dips and lifts along the 
ridge. Just below Hermit Lane the trail sweeps far 
to the left, leaving the creek behind, and plunges 
deep into primeval woods. It makes an abrupt turn 
to the right, a little further on, and crossing Gypsy 



THE WISSAHICKON 



51 




52 THE W1SSAHICK0N 

Lane climbs again to a high cliff overlooking the 
Drive, and from there winds gracefully down to the 
lower level, parallels the Drive along a privet hedge 
for about a hundred yards, and so passes into Ridge 
Avenue. The distance from Rittenhouse Street to 
this point is about a mile. 

The building on Ridge Avenue just below the 
entrance to the Wissahickon Drive was long a 
famous roadhouse. Nearby is the site of Robeson's 
Mill, and at the mouth of the creek, on the bank of 
the Schuylkill, is the former home of the Colony 
of the State in Schuylkill, now occupied by the 
Wissahickon Canoe Club. Passing along Ridge 
Avenue to the west bank of the creek the hiker 
strikes into a broad path which will lead him back 
to the upper reaches. A study of the rock forma- 
tions skirting this path will give a fair idea of the 
difficulties encountered by the road builders who 
broke through that granite barrier in 1826. (It 
would be well here to read Professor Ehrenfeld's 
graphic article on page 63, or, for fuller information 
consult Dr. Angelo Heilprin's "Town Geology.") 

A few hundred feet along this west walk a steep 
flight of stone steps leads up to Rochelle Avenue, 
Roxborough. A little further on a fissure in the 
rock wall invites a scramble to the heights above. 
Beyond the path enters a broad, level stretch where 
there is a boat landing and boats for hire. Directly 
across the creek at this point stands Wissahickon 
Hall, an early roadhouse but now serving as a bar- 
racks for the Park Guard. Further on, a quarter 
of a mile from Ridge Avenue, there is another boat 
landing and picnic ground. Here stood the old 



THE WISSAHICKON 



53 



see. map 

4/ v 



To ions h 
Lane 




54 THE WISSAHICKON 

Log Cabin, and directly across the creek is the site 
of the Maple Springs Hotel. A bridge crossed the 
creek here, but it was removed in 1919. A short 
distance beyond is the graceful stone bridge by 
which Hermit Lane spans the stream, and here the 
pedestrian must take to the east side or climb the 
trail over the steep western bank. 

The climb upward is preferable, for the reward 
is great. Directly overhead is Lover's Leap, a 
broad rock jutting out over the wild gorge through 
which flows the stream two hundred feet below. 
The peak gets its name from one of those hack- 
neyed traditions of thwarted love with which such 
dizzy heights are commonly tagged. It deserves 
a better association. There is evidence that Kel- 
pius frequently sat there in meditation, and it is 
probable that his grave is not far away. The 
Hermit's Spring, said to have been dug by Kelpius 
himself, was nearby, to the southwest; and the deep 
gorge, extending northward along the stream from 
Lover's Leap, is still known as The Hermit's Glen. 
This is one of the most striking natural features 
in all the Wissahickon region. The hillsides are 
dotted with huge boulders, and from one of these, 
a crag jutting out about twenty feet, it is possible 
to look down, when the trees are bare, upon the 
creek's sharp elbow where the upper Wissahickon 
Drive begins. 

At this point, which is diagonally across the 
creek from the Rittenhouse Street entrance, the 
whole character of the valley seems to change and 
take on a wilder aspect. From the Hermit's Glen, a 
broad footpath leads gently down the hill slope, and 



THE WISSAHICKON 



55 




see\7nap 
C 



56 THE WISSAHICKON 

passing upstream, beneath towering trees, strikes 
into the main Drive where the Blue Stone Bridge — 
noble successor to the old Red Bridge — carries the 
carriage way to the west bank, directly above the 
broad pool where one may still see remnants of the 
dam breast of an ancient grist mill. Here, if the 
scant two miles covered are enough for one day, the 
bridge to the right may be crossed and the path fol- 
lowed back to Rittenhouse Street. If one's eyes 
are sharp, the Indian profile may be seen in the rock 
wall a few hundred feet east of the bridge. One 
should pause, also, to read the Battle Tablet on the 
great rock at the corner, and, passing along Paper 
Mill Run into Lincoln Drive, stop to pay tribute to 
the birthplace of David Rittenhouse. 

The Upper Wissahickon 

The upper valley, from the Battle Tablet to the 
County Line at Chestnut Hill, comprises three- 
fourths of the total area of the Wissahickon park- 
way, and decidedly more than that proportion of 
its rarest charm. Here Nature is at home and the 
sights and sounds of the bustling modern city are 
completely shut out. The occasional klop-klop of 
horses' hoofs and the cawing of crows in the tree- 
tops are the loudest notes in this sylvan symphony. 
Beauty crowds so thick upon beauty that no at- 
tempt shall be made here to describe them. We can 
touch only upon the chief points of historical or 
romantic interest, in a quick trip up the main Drive 
to the County Line (about six miles) and back by 
way of the Bridle Path (see maps B, C and D). 



THE WISSAHICKON 



57 



Taking the main Drive, then, at the Blue Stone 
Bridge, we pass, on the left, the site of Lotus Inn, a 
small center of large delights up to a few years 
ago when the land upon which it stood was acquired 
by the Park Commission and the famous little road- 




Walnut Lane Bridge 

house was torn down. A few hundred yards fur- 
ther on, the road bends to the left and a good view 
may be had of Walnut Lane Bridge, erected in 
1907; at that time, and for some years after, the 
longest concrete bridge in the world. It is still 
one of the most beautiful. The lines of its single 
span, about 125 feet above the stream, and of its 
five smaller arches, are exceedingly graceful. Just 



58 THE WISSAHICKON 

beyond this high bridge the creek turns sharply to 
the right, affording a lovely vista from the Drive. 

Roxborough Avenue, striking in from the south- 
west, crosses the Drive diagonally into Kitchen's 
Lane, which affords exit to Germantown by way of 
Carpenter Street. Over the bridge at this point the 
traveler by the main Drive may make an interesting 
side excursion. A walk of about 150 yards down- 
stream, along the footpath, and a short scramble up 
hill will bring him to Mom Rinker's Rock, one of the 
highest and most picturesque crags in the region. 
In the legends connected with it Mom Rinker is 
variously described as a witch and a Revolutionary 
patriot. "Toleration Rock" would be a better title 
for this splendid spur, for here in 1883, the late John 
Welsh erected a heroic granite statue of William 
Penn, looking southward over the tree-tops toward 
his city. On the stone base is cut simply the word 
Toleration. The pale gray figure, seen from a dis- 
tance in certain lights, seems poised in air. It 
stands close to the edge of the jutting ledge, from 
which to the creek winding through thick pines 
there is a sheer drop of two hundred feet. The 
view here is grand at all seasons ; and from this 
peak, when the trees are bare, the Monastery may 
be seen on its hill to the northward beyond Kit- 
chen's Lane. From the lane an indistinct path leads 
up over the hill to the venerable house, built about 
the middle of the Eighteenth Century, where, for 
some years, Joseph Gorgas and his Seventh Day 
Baptist brethren were cloistered from the world. 
Just below the bridge is a pool called the Baptist- 



THE WISSAHICKON 59 

ration, or baptistery, in which proselytes were im- 
mersed. 

At Kitchen's Lane the main Drive enters one of 
the loveliest and wildest stretches of the upper 
Wissahickon. A mile further on, where a small 
stream comes in from the westward through a 
charming valley, there are several Caves, natural 
and artificial, the largest a reminder of the useless 
and foolish labors of credulous gold miners of a cen- 
tury or more ago. Half a mile beyond, at Shaw- 
mont Avenue, are the dismantled piers of the old 
Pipe Bridge, built in 1870, over which for many 
years was carried the water supply from the Rox- 
borough to the Mount Airy reservoir. Here begins 
a stretch of placid water. On the west bank there is 
a canoe landing, and in a little glen, hidden by the 
trees, is the old Livezey House, now the home of the 
Valley Green Canoe Club. Here one may catch, 
high up the wooded eastern slope, an occasional 
flash of riders on the bridle path. The hills begin 
to open, the road broadens and Valley Green ap- 
pears — the heart of the upper Wissahickon. 

The inn at Valley Green, three and three-quarter 
miles from the creek's mouth, and a mile from 
Germantown Avenue, is a rendezvous and delightful 
refreshment station for all. For many years past 
a committee of public-spirited women have 
had it in their care. Here ends navigation for 
canoes, and here in winter there is excellent skating. 
Just above the inn Springfield Avenue comes down 
from St. Martin's over an arched bridge which is 
a thing of beauty. Across this bridge, from Valley 
Green, on the road toward St. Martin's Station, 



60 



THE WISSAHICKON 



there is a beautiful and impressive Wayside Shrine, 
recently erected, as "a Memorial to the boys who 
gave their lives in the Great War." By this bridge, 



/I 



■■■■ 



r-+* 



\ -V-^- 










^*^S ;1 3 



^/ f -. : 






Memorial Shrine 



too — turning directly downstream along the foot- 
path, on the west bank — one may quickly reach the 
mouth of Cresheim Creek, not visible in the summer- 
time, from the main Drive. Just above the point 



THE WISSAHICKON 61 

where the Cresheim joins the Wissahickon is the 
Devil's Pool, rich in Colonial and Revolutionary 
tradition, and a favorite haunt of artists. The vol- 
ume of water here is, unfortunately, not so great as 
it once was, and some of the olden charm is lost. 

Half a mile beyond Valley Green, at the base of 
a steep hill of massed rocks, covered with ferns and 
wild flowers is the first drinking fountain erected 
in Philadelphia. It bears date of 1854, and was the 
joint gift of John Cook, by whom it was erected, 
and Charles Megargee, owner of the land, whose 
famous paper mill, in a nearby meadow, was the 
last industrial establishment left standing along 
the Wissahickon. On a slab above the marble 
basin is cut the legend "Pro bono publico," and 
below "Esto perpetua" ("For the public good ; let 
it remain forever") — a motto and devout aspiration 
that well applies to the whole Wissahickon region. 

At the eastern end of Rex Avenue Bridge a mile 
above Valley Green, an arched gateway of stone 
admits to the rocky path leading up to the grandest 
of the Wissahickon's stony summits — Indian Rock. 
The spot is well named, and the noble work of art 
which now crowns it — the crouching figure of a 
gigantic Lenape warrior, from the chisel of Massey 
Rhind and erected in 1902 by Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
W. Henry — is a fitting memorial to the native red 
men who were in the habit of meeting in council 
here until their disappearance from the valley about 
1756. Beneath this granite lookout the hollow 
front of the cliff forms a natural amphitheatre in 
which the warriors must often have sat, facing a 
smaller outcropping of flat rock that may have 



62 THE WISSAHICKON 

served as an altar or a rostrum for the chief. Below 
these rocky hills towering almost perpendicularly 
the stream enters a deep and narrow gorge. The 
whole neighborhood is inexpressibly wild and 
grand, maintaining, more closely than any other 
spot along the Wissahickon, the aspect and atmos- 
phere of 200 years ago. For many years this air 
of ancient solitude was broken by the bustling 
activity of one of the most popular of the old road- 
houses, the Indian Rock Hotel, built and long con- 
ducted by Reuben Sands. The Park Commission 
removed the original tavern, and Sands erected an- 
other on Monastery Avenue, just beyond the park 
limits. But that, too, has passed. 

Returning over Rex Avenue Bridge to the Drive, 
the traveler comes presently to Thomas Mill Road 
where the creek is spanned by the last of the old 
covered bridges once so numerous in the Wissa- 
hickon region. In 1738 there was a grist mill here, 
and the road was known as Barge's Mill Road until 
1784 when Thomas bought the plant. In 1859 it 
was taken over by Charles Megargee who made a 
paper mill of it. 

From this point north the country, though still 
rocky and uneven, becomes more level. In old 
days the mills were thick along the banks, and the 
numerous changes in ownership still cause some 
confusion in the names of the neighborhood's by- 
ways. Daniel Howell's grist mill, of 1710, passed 
to Jonathan Paul in 1738, to John and James Bell 
in 1801, and to Issachar Thorp in 1833. There are 
ancient inhabitants today who still speak of "Paul's 



THE WISSAHICKON 63 

Mill Road" and (more frequently) "Bell's Mill 
Road" when they mean Thorp's Lane. This lane 
marked the northern limits of the Park when the 
Fairmount Park Commission took charge a half 
century ago, but the Drive has since been extended 
through the Andorra Nurseries to the County Line. 
For the return trip down the Wissahickon to 
Valley Green all horsemen will be obliged — and the 
average walker will prefer — to keep to the main 
Drive. But for the hardy hiker there is a footpath, 
on the east side of the Wissahickon that will de- 
lightfully repay his extra efforts. At Valley Green 
the bridle path may be picked up again, and though 
there are many footpaths also beginning at Spring- 
field Avenue, riders and walkers alike will find that 
splendid horse trail winding along the crest of the 
eastern ridge an avenue of rarest beauty. 



Outlines of Wissahickon Geology 

By Frederick Ehrenfeld, Ph.d. 
In charge Geology and Mineralogy, University of Pennsylvania 

Wissahickon Creek rises to the north of the city 
of Philadelphia in the general region of Gwynedd- 
Lansdale-North Wales, from where it flows as a 
small stream across Whitemarsh Valley to Chest- 
nut Hill. It is at this portion of our local geography 
that those characteristics which have made the 
name of the Wissahickon famous really begin. 

Chestnut Hill comprises a region of some 400 feet 
elevation above sea level at its highest, with the 



64 THE WISSAHICKON 

most of the hills reaching about 300 feet; while at 
a distance down of from 100 to 200 feet lower flows 
the Wissahickon Creek, making the series of gorges, 
deep, narrow valleys and other natural aspects 
which have made this region justly famous as one 
of unusual beauty of landscape. 

The explanation of this lies in the pronounced 
geological nature of the rocks of the region. To 
the north of Chestnut Hill the native rock forma- 
tions are as a rule of a moderately soft and easily 
eroded character and the processes of erosion have 
reduced the country to a general flatness devoid of 
any pronounced changes of landscape character. 
Whereas on the south the rocks of the Chestnut Hill 
region are of an exceedingly durable nature and 
have resisted the wearing away of time to such an 
extent as to leave a series of rounded hills which are 
still projected above most of the other country. 
These Chestnut Hill rocks belong to what is known 
among geologists as "Appalachia" ; that is, an ex- 
tremely ancient land mass, presumably one of the 
foundation parts of the North American Continent, 
whose remnants are still to be seen in Pennsylvania, 
Maryland and adjacent states. This mass of land 
now comprises a series of very old and very much 
crystallized rock which is generally believed to rep- 
resent, together with some formations about New 
England and Canada, the oldest recoverable rocks 
of North America. Its former area extended east 
beyond the present coast. 

How long this portion of Pennsylvania has been 
a land surface exposed to the outer atmosphere is a 
question which is impossible of answer ; certainly 



THE WISSAHICKON 65 

when we would try to speak in the terms of human 
life it is not possible to express such a time in 
years. But the duration of time since the Wissa- 
hickon Creek began to carve its channel into the 
schists of the region has certainly been a long one 
even in the geological sense; it represents a time 
long enough to have seen the reduction of the 
softer limestone rocks of the White Marsh- 
Chester Valley area and the rounding off of the 
hills about Fort Washington and the other eleva- 
tions of the general region, from a former and 
different landscape. In the life of our Wissahickon 
have been many changes of land level. 

The inherent beauty of the valley of the Wissa- 
hickon is due not alone to its great age but to the 
nature of the underlying rock which has preserved 
the steep sides of the valley and presented a series 
of cliffs, walls and narrow deep gorges, which are 
a large part of the charm of the locality. 

We owe the preservation of all this to a definite 
geological fact, the absence of glaciation. The 
rocks of New York City and vicinity which are so 
like our own in many ways were possibly at another 
geological day quite like our Chestnut Hill in land- 
scape, but they were levelled down under the heavy 
drag of glaciation ; their valleys, ravines and cliffs 
ground away. 

The valley of the Wissahickon escaped all this 
since it lay too far to the south to come within the 
reach of the glaciation. It presents to us today a 
unique relic of geological ages otherwise long since 
passed away. 



66 THE WISSAHICKON 

Trees and Wild Flowers 

By Alexander MacElwee 
President Philadelphia Botanical Club 

The charm of the Wissahickon lies in a combination 
of conditions, any one of which might be excelled in 
localities not far away ; but after all is said, we must 
admit, that without the arboreal vegetation the lovely 
region would lack its prime factor. A complete study 
of all the species of plants would require more space 
than is permitted here. A running comment on the 
chief elements of the plant life will suffice. 

We have in this limited area a fair representation of 
the vegetation of the Transition Zone of the Eastern 
United States, with its quick changes from extreme 
heat to extreme cold. The Hemlock is easily the most 
beautiful tree in the region. This graceful evergreen 
tree is quite at home in the valley and may be seen at 
every turn of the drive. On steep, almost soilless, 
slopes, hundreds of tiny seedlings may be counted, 
proving that it is surely upon its "native heath." At 
Valley Green the Hemlocks assume the character of 
almost pure forest, forming so dense a canopy as to 
shut off all light and preventing growth of any plants 
on the floor of the forest below. 

At the end of Springfield Avenue Bridge, may be 
noted fine specimens of Norway Spruce and Scotch 
Pine, both of them introduced trees. White Pines are 
frequent. In recent years thousands of seedling pines 
have been planted with a view to reforesting naked 
slopes. These consist principally of the White Pine, 
Red Pine, Jack Pine and short leaf Yellow Pine. 



THE WISSAHICKON 



67 



Quite a variety of grasses, sedges, rushes and allied 
plants interest the discerning botanist. In the woods 
the Yellow Adder's-Tongue, the Grape Hyacinth, Solo- 
mon's Seal, Indian Cucumber Root and allied plants of 




Old Covered Bridge 

the Lily Family, may be found in the season. Native 
Orchids, formerly abundant in the rich woods, like 
the Indian, have long since disappeared. 

The Crack Willow, a native of Europe, has made 
itself at home all along the creek and its tributaries. 
Especially fine trees occur in the meadow between the 
Lincoln Drive and Rittenhouse Street. The White or 
Silver Leaf Poplar, another immigrant from Europe, 
forms thickets along some of the lanes and sites of old 



68 THE WISSAHICKON 

houses. The native large-toothed Aspen is common 
in the dryer woods. The Black Walnut is a frequent 
tree. Its near relative, the Butternut, is common, par- 
ticularly along the banks of the upper stream; its 
whitish trunks standing out conspicuously. 

There are several varieties of Hickories and Birches, 
and the American Beech is common, in some places 
forming pure growths. The Chestnut tree is appar- 
ently a thing of the past and we never expect to see 
again the glorious bloom of this magnificent tree in 
July. There are several species of Oak growing in 
the Wissahickon forest. The White and Red Oak 
are freely distributed. Pin Oak may be seen in the 
meadows skirting the stream. Higher up on rocky 
slopes, where there is but little soil, may be found the 
Rock Chestnut Oak, noted for its deeply furrowed bark 
on old trees. Unfortunately this tree is falling a prey 
to the Golden Oak scale, another importation from 
Europe. The Bear or Shrub Oak may be found near 
the statue of "Toleration" at the "Mom Rinker's Rock." 

The American Elm is a beautiful tree common in the 
valleys. A magnificent specimen of the European Elm,- 
considerably over a hundred years old, grows near the 
site of the Dewee's Mill at Germantown Avenue and 
the creek. It is surrounded by a goodly array of 
young plants, all arising from the parent and forming 
a small sized forest of its own. Due north of the 
Dewee's Elm is a fine old Silver Maple, standing in 
what was formerly the Convent Garden. The Negundo 
Maple is a very common tree all along the stream, and 
so are several species of Mulberry and the Hackberry. 

The Tulip Poplar is one of the commonest trees 
and probably there are more grand individuals of 



THE WISSAHICKON 69 

this species than any other. The straight trunks ris- 
ing clean and columnar — virtual pillars in God's 
Temple — bear aloft a mass of clean shining leaves, 
seldom attacked by insects or fungus. The flowers 
are beautiful and are succeeded by cones of winged 
seeds which, let loose by the first frosts of winter, 
are driven by the wind to great distances and come 
tail-spinning to the ground everywhere. 

The Laurel Family is represented by two species of 
woody plant — the Spice Bush and the Sassafras — both 
of them characterised, as are nearly all the plants of 
this family, by spicy, aromatic taste or smell. The 
Spice Bush is very common on bottom-lands espe- 
cially, its red seeds forming an acceptable food for 
the birds. The Sassafras, a beautiful small flat- 
topped tree, affects the dryer areas and may be seen 
skirting every clump of woodlands or developing 
into beautiful rounded specimens in the fence cor- 
ners or open fields. 

The Plane Tree, Buttonball, or Button wood (and 
occasionally called Sycamore), is a native, noted for its 
bark peeling off at the end of summer. There are fine 
specimens of this beautiful tree at the edge of the water 
in a grand sweep of the stream just above Rex Ave- 
nue; the white stems stand out silhouetted against 
the darker background of Hemlock and Oak forest. 
Related to the Plane are the Wild Hydrangea and 
the Witch Hazel, both woodland shrubs, the latter 
noted for its streamers of golden flowers seen nearly 
everywhere in our area gleaming in the sunlight of 
the Indian Summer. 

Volumes might be written of the Sumac, the Wild 
Cherry, Hawthorn and other small trees, but space 



70 



THE WISSAHICKON 



forbids. The Dogwood family is represented by sev- 
eral species, mostly shrubs. The Dogwood is one of 
the most beautiful of our native small trees. Flowers, 







'Pro Bono Publico' 



leaves and fruit have each their peculiar charm. Wild 
Azaleas lend color to the woods in late spring, while 
all the year we have the fresh green leaves of the 
Kalmia or Mountain Laurel. If the palm be given to 



THE WISSAHICKON 71 

the Hemlock as the most beautiful evergreen tree, it 
may also be awarded to the Kalmia as our most beauti- 
ful evergreen shrub. Whether on a bleak hillside or 
wet swamp, in sun or shade, the American Laurel is 
ever beautiful; fresh green always in winter and 
summer, and when in full bloom at the latter end of 
May, it is an object of beauty seldom equaled and never 
excelled. 

The American or White Ash is a common tree and 
thanks to its winged seed, one may see, along with 
Tulip Poplars, thousands of lusty seedling youngsters 
on every hand. 

The Catalpa tree is making itself at home wherever 
an opportunity presents. Along with it and resem- 
bling it in leaf character is the Paulownia, a Japanese 
tree. This beautiful tree bears, early in spring, 
panicles of steel blue flowers so numerous as to give 
color to the woods on the west side of the creek 
below Hermit Lane. 

Like the Indian our native trees seem to recede be- 
fore the march of the White Man. They resent the 
opening up of the woods, the tramping of the soil and 
succumb readily to attacks of insects and disease. The 
Chestnut has gone; others are quickly following. We 
know not when some fell pest will attack our beautiful 
Tulip Poplars, Ash and other trees. It seems as if 
fate had decreed their destruction and that to alien 
species, their places had been assigned. To the Ailan- 
thes, Paulownia, Catalpa and others to follow, the gaps 
in our woods have been given. 



72 THE WISSAHICKON 

Mosses Along the Wissahickon 

By George B. Kaiser 

To the student of the lower plants which include 
the ferns, mosses, lichens, fungi and slime moulds, 
the valley of Wissahickon Creek is a veritable 
Mecca. 

At all seasons an abundance of lovely ferns grace 
the driveway. Even in the dead of winter the 
Christmas fern decks the banks with green and in 
several places the "cheerful community of the poly- 
pody" is to be seen in verdant beauty despite the 
blasts. The club moss of the north, too — really not 
a moss but a species of Lycopodium — adds an ever- 
green adornment to the scene. 

In summer, however, the ferns are at their best. 
The Dicksonia, the hay-scented or boulder fern, that 
favorite of Thoreau, is perhaps the commonest of 
all, but the Lady Fern, as well, and the Spinulose 
and Marginal Shield Ferns, the fragile Bladder 
Fern, the Brake or Bracken — more rarely the Beech 
Fern — and other species, aid in making the region 
an instructive collecting ground for the pteridolo- 
gists. 

Then the mosses ! How they abound upon those 
banks along the drive. And there are rarities 
among them, too. The Buxbaumia grows above 
Valley Green and for years a group of students has 
carefully noted a colony at the base of a certain 
buttonwood. This moss is a curious dwarf, which 
a famous botanist has likened to a "hump-backed 
elf" while a more prosaic enthusiast has called it a 



THE WISSAHICKON 



73 



"bug on a stick." The fruits look like glossy brown 
buds borne half inch high on slender stalks and 
when they mature these capsules explode, forcibly 
discharging the spores. Buxbaumia has a near rela- 
tive also to be found along the Wissahickon. It is 
called Webera sessilis and the fertile plants look 
very much like grains of wheat sparsely scattered 
on the bank. 




The Monastery 

On the rocks in one place grows Rhabdoweisia, a 
moss otherwise usually found in Alpine regions, 
and several of those mosses whose tiny capsules 
present strangely twisted teeth about their mouth 
may be discovered if we search diligently. 

Some of us remember how faithfully we always 
revisited in April the old stone bridge at Valley 
Green, where grew a Grimmia with fruits showing 
outspread red teeth just like very tiny starfish when 
they opened at that season. How we regretted 



74 THE WISSAHICKON 

when that old stone wall of the bridge was replaced 
by a new one. The uninitiated do not realize the 
beauty and interest that these mosses offer to the 
student. The delicate feathery forms, the cushions, 
the mats of so many kinds, their aesthetic value in 
the landscape, their wonderful arrangement of cells 
under the microscope, their ever varying fruits so 
infinitely well adapted in structure for the sowing of 
the spores — you must look at them closely to see all 
these beauties, but even the general effect is grati- 
fying and it is difficult to imagine how bare those 
banks would appear without their mossy covering. 
Read Ruskin ! In his "Modern Painters" there is 
a bit of poetic prose about the mosses. 

We must not forget the lichens. These grey- 
green plants, composed of an alga and a fungus liv- 
ing together, also occur along the Wissahickon 
Creek, and their life histories present strange facts 
of symbiosis or of parasitism, which have been the 
foundation for various theories during the past half 
century or more. The questions are not settled yet, 
so if you want to participate in weighty argument 
just study the lichens and qualify to give your own 
opinion of their true nature. 

If you have sought the Wissahickon in late sum- 
mer, surely you have been impressed with the many 
kinds of mushrooms and toadstools to be found 
there. Their colors are many, their forms are many, 
too, and you have vaguely thought of those good 
to eat as mushrooms, and of all the others as toad- 
stools, but if you had entered the true realm of 
mycology you would have found that all these 
fungi are strangely fascinating. Some are so deadly 



THE WISSAHICKON 75 

that for their poison there is no known antidote, 
others offer a grateful food for man and without 
pretending at all to be a great mycophagist — an 
eater of fungi — the writer has enjoyed at least 
twenty kinds collected in the Wissahickon region. 

More lowly than the true fungi, but like them 
living on decaying organic remains, are the Slime 
Moulds — the Myxomycetes, as they are scientifically 
called. The naked eye does not see the most in- 
teresting part of their life history, which is spent 
as naked protoplasm creeping wonderfully through 
the interstices of decaying logs and leaves. During 
this time they seem to be animal and by some are 
still called mycetozoa, or slime animals, but at a 
certain season the protoplasmic substance creeps 
out from the log on leaves and fructifies. Many tiny 
spore-cases appear which have delicate structure 
and bear many, often bright, colors. We have sev- 
eral good students of the Slime Moulds who search 
the vicinity of the dr^e each year for new and in- 
teresting forms of these plants. Many species are 
to be found all through the Valley and, if you have 
doubts, just take a walk out there some fine day in 
August with a "myxomycetologist" and he will 
show you the infinitely small in beauty of which 
you may have never dreamed. 

So rich is this Valley of the Upper Wissahickon 
in all these forms of lower plant life that here is 
presented, for scientific research and constant en- 
lightening study, a field which can never be re- 
placed, a field so valuable to the student that to our 
knowledge it has not its like near any great city 
of the world. 



76 THE WISSAHICKON 

Birds of the Wissahickon 

By Wm. Henry Trotter 

The charm of the beautiful Wissahickon is much 
enhanced by the song and color of many birds. In 
this little bit of native wilderness, bordering a great 
city, many rare species find a sanctuary, make a 
home, and if undisturbed will return every spring 
to gladden the hearts of the steadily increasing fel- 
lowship of those who seek peace and recreation in 
the study of nature's miracles. 

Although there is no season of the year when 
some birds may not be found there, spring and early 
summer mark the flood tide of number and variety. 
As nesting time approaches and courtship is in full 
sway, the happy suitor dons his finest feathers and 
sings his little heart out in ecstasy. During May, 
in the height of the migration period, the woods, 
on certain days, seem full of birds, resting on their 
flight farther north. Most of these birds are Warb- 
lers, small, active, of infinite variety and generally 
of brilliant plumage. The Wissahickon offers an 
ideal refuge and rare members of this large sylvan 
family may often be seen by the fortunate. By 
June most of the travelers have departed and one 
can now get in close touch with the home life of 
feathered favorites who year after year unerringly 
return to their birthplace. 

In some break in the woods where the under- 
growth is thick, a deliberate mellow whistle at- 
tracts our attention and our eyes will soon locate 
on a commanding bough a bright spot of red, a 
male Cardinal in all his glory. These brilliantly 



THE WISSAHICKON 



77 



colored finches, a gift from the South, are now 
common all through the Wissahickon Valley. A 
more spectacular vocal performer, but more soberly 
colored, is the Brown Thrasher, called by Audubon 
the Ferruginous Mockingbird and fairly equalling 

/ 1 


















Rex Avenue Bridge 

that marvelous vocalist. From a lofty perch he 
pours forth a medley of song, hardly stopping to 
take breath. 

Before moving on we must find the Indigo-bird, a 
small finch of a much darker blue than the Bluebird 
and very common in all the open places. His song, 
however, is not equal to his looks. Two warblers, 
the Maryland Yellow-throat, and the Blue-winged 
Warbler, should also be here. The male Yellow- 
throat wears a jet black mask and is thus easily 



78 THE WISSAHICKON 

identified. Both nest on the ground. If a thick 
patch of bramble is near at hand we should find the 
Yellow-breasted Chat, the largest member of the 
Warbler family. Although his appearance is strik- 
ing, with his bright yellow breast, his main claim 
to fame is the peculiarity of his song, which is a 
series of trills and calls of infinite range and variety. 
He has been described as a vocal gymnast. When 
the moon is full he often sings all night long. 

It is probable that a loud ringing call has by this 
time reached our ears, but it will not be easy to 
find the owner. It sounds like "whee-udel, whee- 
udel, whee-udel," and comes from the Carolina 
Wren, a larger cousin of the well-known House 
Wren; it is also a gift from the South, where it is 
very common. The power of the song compared 
to his size puts all the other birds to the blush. 
This Wren and the Cardinal are with us all the 
year 'round. As we pass from the sunlight to the 
shade of the tall hemlocks, other bird music catches 
our attention ; the arresting song of the Ovenbird, 
a small, ground-walking warbler, marked like a 
miniature Thrush. The woods resound with his 
shrill "Teacher, Teacher, Teacher," as John Bur- 
roughs has so well described it, increasing in speed 
and height of scale as he finishes his measure. The 
Ovenbird is named from the appearance of his nest, 
which is on the ground and roofed over like an 
oven. 

Three other warblers spend the summer here, the 
Kentucky Warbler, the Worm-eating Warbler, and 
the Louisiana Water Thrush. The Water Thrush 
is a lover of mountain streams where trout lurk in 



THE WISSAHICKON 79 

the shadows and is not found here, except in the 
Wissahickon and along the small creeks that tumble 
down the wooded slopes. His wild song, when 
first heard on his arrival in early spring, never fails 
to thrill the bird lover. 

A walk in these woods would be incomplete un- 
less it was our good fortune to see the Scarlet Tan- 
ager, the most brilliant gem of our feathered visitors 
and a songster of no mean merit; his throaty call of 
"Chip-Churr" lets us know when he is about. We 
must not forget the Red-eyed Vireo, singing con- 
tinuously in a low, pleasing monotone. His pensile 
nest is one of the finest examples of bird architec- 
ture. He is a sober-colored little bird, of a trusting 
nature, and will allow a close approach while in- 
dustriously hunting through the leafy boughs for 
his favorite diet of measuring worms and small 
caterpillars. His cousin, the Yellow-throated Vireo, 
is not uncommon, but lives mainly in the tree tops. 
As we approach the stream, we will probably be 
startled by a sound like a watchman's rattle, as a 
Kingfisher flies by. Each pair have always their 
recognized fishing section and favorite perches, 
where they keep a sharp lookout for any careless 
fish that come too close to the surface. Here we 
will see the Spotted Sandpiper or Tilt-up, the name 
he gets from the teetering character of his walk. 

The Swallow that skims the surface of the water 
is called the Rough Wing and nests between the 
stones in the old bridges. Another bird nests under 
the old bridges or in a cave if one is handy — the 
Phoebe Flycatcher. His song is no more than an 
effort to call his own name, but is one of the Wissa- 



80 THE WISSAHICKON 

hickon's most familiar sounds. Two other Fly- 
catchers help the Phoebe to keep down the insect 
hosts, the Acadian Flycatcher and the Wood Pewee ; 
and sometimes the Crested Flycatcher pays a visit 
to the more open places. The Wood Pewee also 
calls his own name in a clear, plaintive whistle. 

Of the Woodpecker family, the Flicker and 
Downy Woodpecker are both common and the 
Hairy Woodpecker is sometimes seen. The Nut- 
hatch family is represented by the White-breasted, 
whose call of "Yank, Yank" is often heard. He is 
a short, stumpy little bird and runs up and down 
the tree trunks hunting the bark for grubs. His 
cousin, the Tufted Titmouse, a straggler from the 
South, sometimes pays a visit; his song is loud 
and monotonous "peto, peto, peto, peto," or rarely 
"dear, dear me," which is more pleasing. Bluejays 
find a retreat here, but notwithstanding their size 
and bright blue plumage, are more often heard than 
seen. 

Of the larger birds, Crows are plentiful, nest in 
the tall hemlocks and attack with raucous cry any 
Owl or large Hawk that ventures into their pre- 
serves. The swift Cooper's Hawk, however, does 
not fear them and nests in a suitable crotch in the 
high oaks. The Sparrow Hawk also is at home on 
the edge of the woodland and the little Screech 
Owl hides by day in the hollow trees. As evening 
falls and we leave this woodland paradise, the full 
splendor of America's finest songster, the Wood 
Thrush, filters through the leafy aisles and is a 
fitting close to a day with nature at her best "far 
from the madding crowd." 



THE WISSAHICKON 81 

Railroad and Trolley Routes 

Pennsylvania Railroad — Chelten Avenue Sta- 
tion (Germantown) is five blocks from Rittenhouse 
Street entrance ; Tulpehocken Station is four blocks 
from Walnut Lane bridge; Carpenter Station and 
Allen's Lane Station each about 3 miles, and St. 
Martin's Station, 1 mile from creek at Valley Green ; 
Chestnut Hill Station is 1}4 miles from upper 
entrance at County Line. (Trolley Route 23 passes 
station). 

Reading Railroad — Wissahickon Station (Rox- 
borough) is four blocks from Ridge Avenue en- 
trance. 

Trolley Lines — Route 61 reaches the Ridge Ave- 
nue entrance; Route 52, the foot of Rittenhouse 
Street; Route 53 parallels the Creek from Ritten- 
house Street to Carpenter Street at distances vary- 
ing from one-quarter to one-half mile away ; and 
Route 23 parallels the Creek north from Carpenter 
Street to the County Line which it crosses within 
two blocks of the upper entrance. It crosses Allen's 
Lane, Springfield Avenue, Hartwell Avenue and 
Rex Avenue about 1% miles from the Creek; at 
Thomas Mill Road (Chestnut Avenue) and at 
Bell's Mill Road (Thorp's Lane) the distance is but 
three-quarters of a mile. Valley Green can be 
reached by two walks from Allen's Lane, one by way 
of the continuation of Cresheim Road, the other by 
way of Livezey Lane at the west end of Allen's Lane. 



w 



98 
1 







e* • 







• ■• 



y.^% > \-&k> * ^ ♦• 









w 



lifer \ c° •^s^r °o /\*iife>\ o°*. 



W 
^ 






•a 






5?^ 









^.sttb.^ /.:«:,\ ^.Jifife.* 



W 





• * Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
.J Treatment Date: 






PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. LP. 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranbeny Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 




VI" * 




v»" * 
<A ***** jfF 



«.«• 








^ ** ♦dCfopA** \v ^ ♦*£ ST- ^ *♦ 
3* av ^ v<2 






3> s ^ 






# v % 



<?X 









V 

•*^, 






>/'«.V.</ V^'^ %•-&.*<** < 











#s«' 



WERT 
BOOKBINCHNC 


















^ ♦;&*& 



